


Intelligent Eyes In A Hunger-Pang Frame

by Riniel_Elrandir



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Because if the og writers can so can I!, I just played fast & loose with some timelines, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Tarsus IV, but only slightly - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-18 00:41:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29234718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Riniel_Elrandir/pseuds/Riniel_Elrandir
Summary: What if a young Leonard McCoy was part of a humanitarian mission while in medical school? And what if that humanitarian mission took him to a recently blighted colony, far more devastated than anyone had expected? Five years later, a familiar pair of hazel eyes stare back at him when he walks into a Starfleet exam room to give a cadet physical and he finds himself transported back to a time & place he’d rather forget.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 54





	Intelligent Eyes In A Hunger-Pang Frame

**Author's Note:**

> Cw: Implied eating disorder, PTSD, flashbacks, genocide reference (Tarsus IV)

Perhaps if he’d taken the time to read through his patient histories prior to their physicals he wouldn’t have had such a shock. As it was though, he found himself with nearly as many cadet physicals to get through as there were hours in the day and not nearly enough hours to complete them before he had to consult with his attending on each one. So, he hadn’t actually reviewed the patient histories as thoroughly as he might have otherwise. After all, they were cadet physicals, what surprises could there be?

“Right, so cadet yearly physical.” Leonard McCoy looked up from his PADD as he bustled into the room, meeting a pair of keen hazel eyes and found himself rooted in place, voice stuck in his throat as he was transported back in time.

~~~

Leonard McCoy wasn’t sure what he was doing here exactly. He was just a kid from a small town in Georgia, only a year into medical school, not even twenty years old, and somehow he was here, on Tarsus IV, helping put together the aftermath of one of the greatest massacres in Federation history. Messages had come back to Earth recently, a blight of some sort had struck the crops, the colonists were starving, they needed volunteers to go give health exams to the colonists. His advisor had mentioned it because he’d known Leonard was interested in Starfleet.

“It’ll be a good opportunity for you, Leonard. You get your name in with Starfleet now, it’ll be easier when you finish school to get them to accept you to one of their xenobiology residency programs.”

So, Leonard had signed up. It was supposed to be easy enough, go to Tarsus IV, help the doctors and nurses administer exams to the colonists, distribute supplies, administer supplemental vitamins. Easy. A little bit of dreaded space travel, but easy. When they arrived they’d found it was anything but.

And now, here he was, nineteen years old, staring at a kid who couldn’t be more than a handful of years younger than himself who was the oldest child survivor of the worst massacre since the Federation’s founding. There had been 8,000 colonists here. Now there were half as many. Half as many plus nine children to be exact. And Leonard was staring at the oldest, who looked back at him unblinking, intelligent eyes in a hunger-pang frame. 

He had no idea why he’d been assigned care of the kid, the nine children they’d found in the woods, this boy their apparent leader, were the sickest of all the colonists. And Leonard wasn’t a doctor yet, not even a nurse, who the hell, thought he was qualified for this? But so far no one had gotten the boy to speak or even allow anyone within five feet of him, let alone subjected himself to an exam, and someone had suggested that perhaps Leonard, still technically a teenager himself, might be less threatening than the rest of them.

After about five minutes of the little impromptu staring contest, Leonard sighed, and flopped down into the only other chair in the room. “So, are you going to say anything or are we just going to stare at each other all day? Because I can’t really do an exam without consent but I don’t have anywhere else to be if you plan to make me wait all day.” 

The boy’s stare had turned to an angry glare. Ah, progress. He had elicited a response, even if the kid hadn’t meant for Leonard to realize it, and Leonard would bet his entire medical school career that he hadn’t. 

“Let’s see,” he flipped to the kid’s chart on his PADD. It didn’t have much, most of the colony records had been destroyed, but they’d managed to identify the children at least. “James Kirk, right? Thirteen years old?” And that was the sum total of information Leonard had on the kid, that and that he’d bit a Starfleet officer who tried to take one of the younger kids away from him. Which was apparently not considered important to put in the boy’s chart? Leonard raised an eyebrow, pulling out a stylus and scribbling the fact into a section labeled “miscellaneous notes”. 

“What are you writing about me?” The boy’s, James’s, voice was harsh, but Leonard thought he could hear the fear under the anger. He was also rather impressed with himself for eliciting a whole sentence. Had no one tried just existing around the kid? Not trying to touch him from the start? For god’s sake he was a traumatized teenager! 

“Just adding a note to your chart that the id-doctors who tried to examine you earlier left off.” James definitely sat up straighter at that and Leonard was sure the kid had caught his almost slip in calling his superiors idiots. “Seems they didn’t think your loyalty was worth noting.”

James narrowed his eyes at him. “You mean my kids. They took my kids. I tried to stop them, but they-“ He cut himself off, seeming to realize he’d said more than he’d intended to this strange adult. But it was still progress, more than Leonard had thought he would get, more than anyone else had made, and it was an in he could use, if he tread carefully. All those psych classes his roommate had always teased him about were about to be pushed to their limits. 

“Your kids, tell me about them.” Leonard kept his voice gentle, even and conversational in contrast to James’s hostility. 

“They took them. I was supposed to protect them but I let them take them. I tried to stop them, I’d already lost so many, but I, I wasn’t strong enough - “ he broke off again, but this time it was with a choked back sob that Leonard was sure he was only not letting out because he still didn’t feel safe and dammit! He was a med student, not a therapist. But he was also all this kid had. 

“The others that were with you are safe, James. There was a,” he paused, flipping through the notes on his PADD “a Kevin and a Thomas, right? They’re both here, on this ship, being treated for malnutrition, and Thomas for the injuries to his face. And let’s see, Kevin has a younger brother, Patrick, he’s on this ship as well. The other five kids, I have their charts right here, too, all being treated for minor injuries, malnutrition, dehydration. All remarkably alive. If you’re worried about them, I’m sure no one will object to you seeing them, we just need to get you looked after first.”

James looked at him with something akin to hope, but marred but an innocence lost too young. “You can examine me, but don’t call me James anymore. It’s Jim. And I want to see my kids as soon as we’re done.” His voice was hard, and Leonard was certain this was a test.

“Pleased to meet you Jim. Call me Leonard. Let’s get started, shall we?”

~~~~

This time, Jim ended the staring contest first, McCoy still stuck in a time and place he’d rather have left far behind. “I seem to remember you hating space, at least if you’re the same Leonard McCoy I met back when he was a med student and I was a scrawny thirteen year old with an attitude problem. I dunno if you noticed, doc, but Stafleet mostly operates in space.”

McCoy managed to find his voice at that. “Space also has significantly less of my ex wife than Earth and she was rather clear about her opinions on the amount of room this planet had for both of us.” 

Jim winced in sympathy, then flashed him a charming grin. “Sorry to hear about that. Guess I’m lucky I got you, huh? Someone who already knows the bulk of my medical history so we don’t even need to go over it.” 

Leonard glanced down at his PADD. He was certain his attending would have given him a head’s up about one of his patients having severe childhood malnutrition, not to mention PTSD. And Leonard had put both of those in Jim’s chart himself five years ago. The chart was deceptively normal. “Where’s the rest of your chart? I put the notes on Tarsus in here myself, and they aren’t here, where’d they go?” 

Jim winced again and Leonard couldn’t help but feel a little guilty. “I may have hacked my file. And then hacked the Academy’s program for assigning cadets to doctors so I could guarantee I had you when I discovered you’d transferred to Starfleet. I just, I can’t have anyone else knowing. You and Admiral Pike are the only ones. Please.”

And there, that desperate begging, if Leonard hadn’t been looking at a healthy, filled out adult Jim he would have been sure it had been the voice of the same thirteen year old he’d met on Tarsus, desperate to see his kids. And Leonard would do anything for that kid and Jim knew it.

“Fine. But I’m putting you on a strict meal plan and if I even hear you aren’t eating enough, you’re going straight to counseling.”

“Deal.” And there was that charming smile again. All confidence, the ghosts of the past hiding behind intelligent eyes in a still too hunger-pang frame for Leonard’s liking, but they’d work on it.

**Author's Note:**

> Alternate title, courtesy of a friend: The Untold Song of Star Trek: T R A U M A


End file.
